I'm very jealous of my daughter's education. She's been inspired by her teachers and nobody inspired me as a teenager.
I came at age in the '60s and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.
A friend told me that teenage girls are always looking for someone to pin their dreams on. That doesn't make it any less weird though.
I feel like I am a real artist and I want to be able to feel what I am singing about. So when I sing 'Leave (Get Out) ' I have been through that. I think it is just a new generation whether people are ready for it or not. Teenagers are dating.
I fantasize about going back to high school with the knowledge I have now. I would shine. I would have a good time I would have a girlfriend. I think that's where a lot of my pain comes from. I think I never had any teenage years to go back to.
When I was a teenager my dad used to call me 'Hollywood' because I wore sunglasses all the time even at night. Cue song.
My dad came from Cuba when he was a teenager not speaking English. And I grew up here speaking Spanglish. That's the world in which I grew up and that's a world in which a lot of second generation immigrants find themselves.
My dad? He died when I was 19 which is a bad time for your dad to die because there's an awful lot of things you have to resolve with your parents past your teens if you've been a difficult teenager.
My dad liked a lot of Motown but I didn't listen to it until my teenage years.
Once I had all the facts in I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager I didn't have any skills for writing as such so it came out in 1500 words.